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British e-com minister to visit Bangalore

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

BANGALORE: Douglas Alexander, minister of state for E-commerce and

Competitiveness, the UK, is slated for his maiden visit to Bangalore on November

1 and 2, coinciding with the IT.com 2001 fair. On the inaugural day, the

minister will address a seminar on "IT for the common man" and is

scheduled to meet Karnataka’s IT minister B K Chandrashekar. He will also

deliver a keynote address at the "Invest UK" meet.

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According to Kelvin Green, second secretary, British Trade Office, Douglas

Alexander will later in the day visit the new Wipro facility at Electronics City

and the Infosys campus, where he will meet Infosys chief N R Narayana Murthy who

is also the chairman of Indo-British Partnership (IBP).

When asked about his expectations from the IT fair, he said, "We see

ourselves as the natural gateway to the European market. Also, we are actively

encouraging Indian companies and providing support and services for their

establishment there. At the moment we are focussing to maintain our high profile

offerings in India. This apart, we have the Invest UK, a British government

agency, promoting inward investment into the UK". He added, "Of the

18,000 work permit visas opened for software professionals, 11,000 selected are

Indians and we hope to increase it in future.

He said that the UK was the third largest investment partner in India for

2000-2001 after US and Mauritius. He added that his government would focus on

emerging areas like biotechnology and IT services, e-commerce and other such

niche segments. After the last edition of IT.com, 21 companies had moved to

India to set up base, he said.

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